Macbeth By William Shakespear

A detailed Summary of Macbeth By William Shakespear

Macbeth by William Shakespeare Year 10 GCSE English Coursework: Media

Compare the two films of Macbeth. How do they differ and in what ways are they similar? Which film do you prefer and why?

William Shakespeare wrote Macbeth the play. Many directors in their own style have interpreted this play. I will be comparing two films played by different directors. Different directors make the two films. The two films are based on the same story but the differences occur in the way each director has interpreted the text. The traditional style of Macbeth was done by Roman Polanski and the modern version was done by Penny Woolcock. The traditional version was made in 1979 and the modern BBC vision was made in 1997. The traditional version was made in Scotland and the modern version was set in Ladywood in Birmingham. The actors used in the traditional version were pretty famous and known but in the modern version ordinary people who have little knowledge of acting play the characters. The traditional version was made for a worldwide audience and to be put on cinema. The modern version was made for the BBC to be put directly on TV for England.

Both films tell a story of Macbeth. Three witches prophecy that he will be King and this

The actors in the two films were very different to each other. The two directors had a very large difference in their budget. Polanski had a lot of spending money so he had the money to pay for some big famous actors and actresses but Penny Woolcock the BBC director had a lower budget and so the actors she used were less well-known and many local residents who weren't actors at all. In Polanski's version he chooses actors and with particular looks because they are more effective and look traditional like we would expect them to be instead of more modern like the BBC version. The traditional version used traditional clothes and there were no black actors in it, but in the BBC version they wear modern clothes and there are many black actors. Polanski's version was made in 1971 and their would not to be many black actors in England anyway and also it could be that Polanski wanted it to be very traditional and in the time it was set there would be no black people in Scotland. A modern production would be more likely to have and black actor's part of the community the modern vision was set in and the board also targets anti-racism to the people watching it on television. The witches is also differed in the two versions, in the traditional version they were old women like we would expect them to be with cauldrons. But in the modern vision they were three children, which is very shocking because children are supposed to be innocent and not evil.

The two films were set in very different settings. Polanski's Macbeth was set in the open countryside in Scotland and his castle was more like the setting of the play, which made it more traditional, and there were the mountains and woodlands where the whether created an atmosphere. By putting the music on in the background the weather was cloudy and made it look eirie. The witches where more traditiona

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Approximate Word count = 1250
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English